A News Blog

Keeping you in the know in the world of politics

BEE BRANCH | It is the most over-used cliche in politics and I usually try to avoid it: watching laws (or in this case, rules) being made is like sausage-making in that you might like the taste of the results, but you don’t want to watch the process that goes into producing it. But in this case, as the national Democratic Party’s Rules Committee meets this morning in Washington to discuss what to do about the contested presidential primaries in… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions defended his vote against the so-called “New G.I. Bill” that would provide enhanced educational benefits for military short-timers. Sessions, who is up for reelection this year, even broke with senior Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, a fellow Republican from Tuscaloosa, in voting against the bill with only 21 other senators. President George W. Bush is against the bill, which he maintains will deplete the military of experienced troops, and has said he will veto… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | Junior Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions did not seem to realize that he had a primary election in a week from when he spoke here Tuesday. After Sessions spoke to a joint meeting of the Tuscaloosa Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama and while waiting for the local television station to set up for an on-camera interview, I casually asked him about his June 3 primary in a week. “It’s a week from today?” he… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | Last week the bipartisan bill sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., to increase educational benefits for our troops passed by an overwhelming, veto-proof 75-22 margin, with Alabama’s two Republican senators voting on opposite sides. Tuscaloosa senior Sen. Richard Shelby broke with President George W. Bush, who has threatened to veto Webb’s “New G.I. Bill,” which would provide tuition for soldiers after three years of service, while Mobile Sen. Jeff Sessions voted against the bill, which proponents say… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | The phrase “jumping the shark” entered the American slang lexicon after a 1977 three part episode in the waning days of the TV series “Happy Days” in which Fonzie, wearing a bathing suit and his trademark leather jacked jumped over a shark while water skiing. It was a ludicrous premise and to many marked the final degradation of what had been a good-of-its-kind television show. “Jumping the shark” has come to mean taking that one step too far… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | Alabama state Sen. Vivian Figures, a Mobile Democrat who is running for the United States Senate seat now held by incumbent Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, came by The Tuscaloosa News Thursday for an interview with our newspaper’s editorial board. Figures’ race, in which she will face two opponents in the June 3 Democratic primary for the nomination to run against Sessions, who is unchallenged in his own primary, is the kind I usually label “quixiotic” for its prohibitive… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | One could argue, and argue persuasively, that the only thing the Alabama Legislature really has to do every year is pass the state’s general fund and education budgets and go home. This year our lawmakers didn’t even do that, adjourning the 2008 Regular Session at midnight Monday with the $6.3 billion education budget still on the floor of the Senate. That failure, which was prompted by a power struggle over a relatively small $25 million some senators wanted… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | As noted here, there will not be much excitement on the local front in Tuscaloosa County this year, with only three primaries and seven local offices on the November ballot, two of which will continue to be held by incumbents who received no opposition in either party. But in the other nine counties in West Alabama there will be 20 primaries two weeks from today. In many of the Democratic primaries, a win will catapult the victor to… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | Below is my At Large Column for April 18 in which I delve into some rather sensitive racial issues. One thing I forgot to add to those who say blacks in places like Alabama are voting for Obama because of his race is this: if Obama were not in the race, does anyone think they would not be voting for Clinton in similar numbers? After all, she is the wife of the first “black” president, isn’t she? It… Read More »

TUSCALOOSA | Lame duck President George W. Bush launched a totally inappropriate petty partisan attack today when he addressed the Israeli Knesset during what should have been dignified remarks on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state. “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before,” he told Israeli lawmakers celebrating the remarkable perseverance… Read More »